The initial phase of state-of-the-art ‘AM4’ facility includes space for 1,555 cabinets and is planned to have four expansion phases. At full build the vertical facility will represent a total investment of $189 million and provide 4,200 cabinets across eight floors with more than 125,000 gross sq ft (11,500 sq m) of data centre space.
“Amsterdam has long been a key digital gateway and a significant piece of Equinix’s global data centre footprint,” said Eric Schwartz, president EMEA of Equinix. “Businesses are increasingly looking for network-rich locations that have cloud connectivity but are also located in close proximity to end users. By moving IT to these sort of environments, businesses create a digital edge that increases performance and end-user experience, but also allows them to adopt to meet future needs. The addition of AM4 gives these businesses yet another way to interconnect in this key market.”
AM4 is Equinix’s new flagship data centre and will support the increasing demand for interconnection capacity to accelerate business performance. It further increases capacity to meet growing demand for hybrid cloud, interconnection and connectivity to business ecosystems across a number of vertical markets and internet exchanges.
Global IP traffic is set to surge nearly threefold over the next five years, according to Cisco’s latest visual networking index (VNI) forecast. AM4 enables companies to extend network infrastructure to the digital edge and enhance workload performance by shortening the distance between services and users.
Penny Jones, senior analyst of European services at 451 Research, said: “With its connectivity to continental Europe as well London and the Nordics, Amsterdam has become a key hub for cloud and other service providers to offer enterprise interconnection. European enterprises are starting to realise their current network architecture is no longer optimal for digital transformation as they journey to the cloud. A deployment in a network-dense interconnection-oriented facility such as that being offered in Amsterdam could be a viable option to support their digital transformation.”
The addition of the flagship data centre to Equinix’s existing sites in Amsterdam will mean 80% of data in the Netherlands will be flowing through Equinix IBXs, within 50 milliseconds, which in turn connect to AMS-IX (Amsterdam Internet Exchange). The Netherlands has connections to more than 150 global submarine cables networks and Equinix data centres in Amsterdam represent one of the densest network concentrations in the world.
“The Netherlands is one of the leading drivers of data centres in Europe. Thanks to its excellent connectivity, Amsterdam is the world's largest internet hub, making the digital sector one of the three main ports, next to Schiphol and the port of Rotterdam. Equinix' new data centre AM4 ensures that Amsterdam remains the global internet hub and that European organizations are supported in their digital transformation,” addd Nina Tellegen, director of the Amsterdam Economic Board.
The facility was officially opened today by StartupDelta Special Envoy, His Royal Highness Prince Constantijn of the Netherlands.
The news comes after Equinix sealed a partnership with Alibaba Cloud in multiple markets across EMEA, APAC and the Americas and completed the acquisition of 29 data centres and their operations from Verizon Communications for $3.6 billion after announcing the opening of five new data centres and an expansion of existing facilities in a $1 billion expansion programme.
